Gravel riding in Greece = new routes through ancient history
I had some time off from Breakaway Greece guests, so took my Sonder Camino gravel bike for a local ride around Epidavros and back through history...
In our little village port, we have a small amphitheatre. Thousands of years ago boats used to land here, coming from around the ancient world, for the rich and ill to make the 9-mile trek inland to the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus - the world's first-ever health sanctuary (where herbal medicine, rather than faith, was used to help the ill) - built here because the area contained the best water and eadible produce the Greeks could find anywhere.
The famous 12,000-seat Epidavros Amphitheatre was built at the sanctuary as a place for celebrating the renewed good health of the visitors. The path they built there is now over 3,000 years old and still contains some of its original steps, pillars and walls. There is now a run - the Epidavrios Dromos - that takes place on this path - I made my own pilgrimage inland.
It’s amazing what you can discover on a gravel bike that you miss on the roads. In many countries, this would be fenced off with a charge to enter but here the country is full of ancient sites that, whilst being respectful, you are allowed to use as the original Greeks did, thousands of years beforehand.
I’m now discovering and creating the first gravel routes around Epidavros and the Peloponnese will be inviting guests to try them - or the run - in the Spring of next year.
